Comparative analysis of the anxiety-related behaviors in four inbred mice.

MedLine Citation:

PMID:
12426069
Owner:
NLM
Status:
Publisher

Abstract/OtherAbstract:

An anxiety-related behavior is an emotional response of an organism, which is quantitatively measured by several behavioral paradigms. We employed two most frequently used behavioral tests, the open field and light-dark exploration, to comparatively analyze the anxiety-like behaviors in four inbred mice. For an accurate recording of movement, motion analysis software was developed that acquires a real-time video input to generate a behavioral path. Effects of the strains on the test results were evaluated by ANOVA with the Newman-Keuls post hoc comparison. Eight different behavioral indices, four from each tests, were grouped into two classes; the results of duration, center crossing, transition, rearing, and ambulation indicate strain differences of FVB/N>C57BL/6J>/=BALB/cA>/=CBA/N (I), while stretched-attend posture, peeping, and defecation show the tendency of FVB/N=C57BL/6J<CBA/N</=BALB/cA (II). The peeping is a novel type of behavior observed in this work. Although there is a variation among behavioral indices in their discrimination between inbred lines, the behaviors are highly correlated one another such that each class I or class II behaviors are clustered on two orthogonal factor planes as a result of the principal component analysis. The polarization of each inbred line toward these two behavioral biases may reflect genetic backgrounds of these strains.